One type of industrial control process is referred to as a batch process, which involves subjecting raw materials to processing steps using one or more pieces of equipment to produce a “batch” of product. Efforts to automate batch processing have led to the formation of standards committees by members of industries involved in batch processing and suppliers of batch processing equipment, among others. The general purpose of these standards committees has been to define uniform standards for automated batch processing. One such standard has been promulgated by the International Society for Measurement and Control, an international organization concerned with issues of process control. This standard is entitled Batch Control Part 1: Models and Terminology and is often referred to as the ISA S88.01-1995 standard (or “S88” for purposes of this application).
The S88.01 standard defines models of equipment and procedures for use in automated batch processes, as well as terminology for use in referring to those models and their elements. The S88.01 standard defines a “batch process” as a process that leads to the production of finite quantities of material by subjecting quantities of input materials to an ordered set of processing activities over a finite period of time using one or more pieces of equipment. A “batch” is defined as the material that is being produced or has been produced by a single execution of a batch process.
Batch-processing equipment (e.g., controllable elements such as valves, heaters, mixers, and so forth) is operated according to procedures to produce a batch. Generally, such equipment is referred to synonymously as equipment, equipment modules, processing equipment, or physical elements. The procedures to operate such physical elements are often referred to by the S88.01 standard as the “procedural model.” According to the S88.01 standard, the procedural model is structured as a hierarchical ranking of procedures, with the highest level encompassing each of the lower levels, the next highest level encompassing each of the levels below it, and so on. Typically, the levels of the S88.01 procedural model of a particular application are, in descending order: the “procedure;” the “unit procedure;” the “operation;” and the “phase.”
The term “procedural element” generally refers to components that employ any of the levels of the S88.01 procedural model, not just to those of the “procedure” level or any other single level of the procedural model. The highest-level procedural element of interest is referred to as a procedure, which is made up of one or more unit procedures. Each unit procedure is in turn made up of one or more operations, which are each in turn made up of one or more phases. The S88.01 procedural model does not preclude definition and use of other hierarchical levels, nor does it require that each level be present in particular applications. Rather, the standard is intended to provide a broad, standardized model for describing the procedures followed in automated batch-process control.
For several years, the batch process industry has been applying modular techniques based upon the ISA S88 standard. With such standard, the industry has realized significant benefits due to the reduction of development time, decreased time to market, product consistency, and many others. On the contrary, there is limited amount of reuse within discrete manufacturing segments associated with automation. Data, coding, applications, etc. are typically not reused within discrete manufacturing due to variability of procedures for different machines and the variability of equipment. In other words, there are a plurality of machines that can employ numerous procedures in a number of ways which can complicate the re-usability of data associated therewith. Additionally, abstraction of procedure and equipment in accordance with the S88 standard has not been adapted within discrete manufacturing.
Such problems and complications are compounded by manufacturing trends at the enterprise level. Manufacturers need to leverage Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Manufacturing Execution System (MES) investment across the entire manufacturing enterprise. Integration of MES systems with discrete manufacturing environments are largely custom systems due to the perceived lack of re-use within the automation control system and/or environment and/or interface between the control system and the MES system. Yet, these custom solutions yield numerous faults, problems, and concerns. Custom integration is a time consuming and extremely expensive project to implement between a discrete manufacturing environment and MES systems. By their very nature of being unique and specific, custom integration techniques require intensive testing and verification. Additionally, custom solutions are difficult to maintain (e.g., based on the continuously changing environments, etc.). Lastly, custom solutions are difficult and expensive to implement.